Harvey Weinstein & Ryan Kavanaugh Extortionist Gets 7 Years In Prison

A little more than a year after he was arrested for threatening to kill members of the families of Harvey Weinstein and Ryan Kavanaugh unless he was paid millions, Vivek Shah today was given a stiff sentence behind bars by a federal judge. The 26-year-old West Hollywood actor was given seven years and three months for his $122 million extortion scheme involving the two producers as well as Playtone Co’s Gary Goetzman, Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky and others. Shah sent letters to Weinstein and the Relativity Media boss last summer demanding $4 million and $11.3 million, respectively, be wired to offshore accounts if they didn’t want their loved ones harmed. Despite an elaborate plan of false IDs, anonymous websites and several U.S. Postal Service accounts, the FBI picked up Shah on August 10 in Chicago. “It was an extraordinarily brazen crime, and I’m pleased, for the victims’ sake, that we were able to put a stop to it so quickly,” said U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia in a statement today.